SRHE News Issue 19– January 2015 SRHE News Issue 19 January 2015 Editorial: Was that a foul REF? by Rob Cuthbert The Research Excellence Framework, the UK’s latest version of research quality assessment, reached its conclusion just after the SRHE Research Conference. Publication of the results in mid-December led to exhaustive coverage in all the HE media, and there is even more analysis in this issue of SRHE News. In the Research Season 2008-2014 the controversy was not so much about who ended up top of the league, but whether the English premier league can still claim to be the best in the world. Big clubs were even more dominant, with the golden triangle pulling away from the rest and filling the top league positions. But controversy raged about the standard of refereeing, with many more players being labelled world class than ever before. Referees supremo David Sweeney was quick to claim outstanding success, but sponsors and commentators were more sceptical, as the number of goals per game went up by more than 50%. During the season transfer fees had reached record heights as galactico research stars were poached by the big clubs before the end of the transfer window. To secure their World University League places the leading clubs were leaving nothing to chance. It was a league of two halves. After positions based on research outcomes had been calculated there was a series of adjustments, based on how many people watched the game (impact), and how big your stadium was (environment). This was enough to ensure no surprises in the final league table, with big clubs exploiting their ground advantage to the full. And of course after the end of the season there is usually a further adjustment to ensure that the big clubs get an even bigger share of the funding available. This process, decreed by the game’s governing body, is known as ‘financial fair play’. Some players had an outstanding season - astronomers were reported to be ‘over the moon’ at the final results, but not everyone was happy: one zoologist confided that he was ‘sick as a parrot’. The small clubs lacked nothing in effort, especially at Northampton, where they responded superbly to their manager’s call to put in 107%. But not everyone can be a winner, research is a results business and as always when a team underperforms, some clubs will be quick to sack the manager, and many more will sack the players. Scepticism about the quality of the league lingers among the game’s governing body, suspicious about high scoring, and there is a risk that the money from the Treasury will finally dry up. The game may not have finished yet, but some … some people are running onto the pitch, they think it’s all over. It is for now. 1 Contact us SRHE News Editor: Professor Rob Cuthbert [email protected] (00 44) 1275 392919 Rob Cuthbert is Emeritus Professor of Higher Education Management, University of the West of England, Joint Managing Partner, Practical Academics [email protected], Editor, Higher Education Review www.highereducationreview.com, and Chair, Improving Dispute Resolution Advisory Service www.idras.ac.uk. Editorial policy SRHE News aims to comment on recent events, publications, and activities in a journalistic but scholarly way, allowing more human interest and unsupported speculation than any self-respecting journal, but never forgetting its academic audience and their concern for the professional niceties. If you would like to suggest topics for inclusion in future issues, to contribute an item, or to volunteer a regular contribution, please contact [email protected]. We aim to be legal, decent, honest, truthful, opinionated and informed by scholarship. We identify named individuals with their employing institutions. News content is written by the editor except where authors are identified or sources are acknowledged. Comments and suggested additions to editorial policy are welcome. Future editions of SRHE NEWS Copy deadline for SRHE News Issue 20: 31 March 2015 Contributions and comments from SRHE members keep News in touch with what is going on in higher education research around the world: please let the editor know of any personal news or contributions you would like to submit for future issues. Just email [email protected] 2 Contents Editorial: Was that a foul REF? by Rob Cuthbert .................................................................................... 1 Government and Higher Education Policy ............................................................................................ 5 Policy and Funding in England ................................................................................................... 5 Policy and Funding in the US ..................................................................................................... 8 Private and For-Profit Higher Education .................................................................................... 9 Strategy, Leadership, Governance and Management......................................................................... 10 Teaching, Learning and Assessment .................................................................................................... 11 Students ................................................................................................................................... 12 International research on the student experience: power, methodologies and translation by Camille Kandiko Howson ........................................................................................................ 12 The student experience in England: changing for the better and the worse? by Paul Temple ................................................................................................................................................. 14 Widening participation ............................................................................................................ 15 Quality, Standards, Performance, Evaluation ..................................................................................... 16 Research ............................................................................................................................................... 17 Research into higher education ............................................................................................... 18 Libraries, Publishing and Information Technology ............................................................................. 18 Publishing ................................................................................................................................. 18 Ethics and Academic Freedom ............................................................................................................. 19 Ethics and Integrity .................................................................................................................. 19 Plagiarism ................................................................................................................................. 20 Academic freedom ................................................................................................................... 20 Global Perspectives .............................................................................................................................. 21 Australia ................................................................................................................................... 21 Policy and Funding in Australia by Marcia Devlin ................................................................... 21 China ........................................................................................................................................ 22 3 Europe ...................................................................................................................................... 22 Society News ........................................................................................................................................ 23 New SRHE member portal for Routledge Taylor & Francis journal access .............................. 23 SRHE Annual Research Conference 2014 (10-12 December) .................................................. 23 SRHE Newer Researcher Conference 2014 (9 December) ................................................ 24 SRHE Research & Scoping Awards 2014 .................................................................................. 24 SRHE Newer Researchers Award 2015 – Closing date: 31 March ........................................... 25 Forthcoming SRHE Network Events ......................................................................................... 26 Forthcoming SRHE Professional Development Workshops .................................................... 27 And Finally … ........................................................................................................................................ 28 Small ads .................................................................................................................................. 28 Ian McNay writes ….................................................................................................................. 29 4 Government and Higher Education Policy Policy and Funding in England Cost of teaching postgraduates is higher than undergraduates, and other shock news Consultants KPMG, commissioned by HEFCE to investigate the costs of postgraduate provision, have so far come up with a series of less than surprising headlines: